Transcript: Mayor Adams Appears Live on PIX11’s “Evening News”

February 12, 2024

Shirley Chan: All right, let's get back to our top story tonight, that weather alert. Joining us now on the phone is New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Mayor Adams, we know you're very busy working with your city agencies to prepare for the storm, so thank you so much for joining us to talk tonight.

Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you very much. You know, we've been extremely fortunate over these last few years around snow. We have not been hit with a major storm. That appears to be changing tonight. We're looking to get rain first, but then five to eight inches of snow with low visibility. And we're also concerned about coastal flooding, probably two feet of coastal flooding around vulnerable shorelines.

But we're ready. DSNY is on the front line, Commissioner Tisch and her team, as well as we're advising New Yorkers, if you could stay off the road, please do so.

Kori Chambers: Well, certainly all eyes will be on you as they are whenever we have a big storm in New York City.

I want to talk about schools though because there's a lot of parents, they got that news that city schools are going remote early, and some of them were like, what, really?  You know, there was some frustration there.

And I heard your news conference earlier, and it almost sounded to me — and again, this is my take on what you said — it almost sounded like you were scolding some parents that are frustrated with you and frustrated with schools being remote tomorrow. So, set the record straight, what should parents know, and what's your message to folks that maybe aren't happy with that decision?

Mayor Adams: No, it wasn't scolding, it was the question was raised, the difficulties of using social media. And I was clear, my mother and her arthritic leg used to walk me through the snow to schools just to find out that school was closed.

And so using this as a teaching moment to have our children learn how to continue the expansion of remote learning is so important. We fell back in education because of Covid. We cannot afford our young people to miss school days. That cannot happen. We have to keep up, and remote learning has given us an opportunity on how to do so,  and we're going to continue to move forward.

We made progress. We're leading the state in reading and writing because we kept our schools open during cycling out of Covid.

Chan: All right, mayor, before we let you go,  we need to ask you about a serious situation up in the Bronx, reports of at least six people have been shot, one person killed during an altercation in our subway system. What can you tell us in terms of the latest about this incident?

Mayor Adams: It's still unfolding now. It appears to have been a dispute that took place on the train, spilled onto the platform. An individual discharged several rounds, striking anywhere from six to seven people. Still unfolding.

This is not just a random act of shooting, we believe this stemmed from a dispute that took place. And we are now looking for the suspect or suspects that are involved, but it's currently unfolding at this time.

Chambers: I read that these are all young people involved in that. Is that accurate, that these are, you know, teenagers that may have been involved in this?

Mayor Adams: We're still looking into it, and as soon as we get an update we're going to notify the public. But it is clear far too many of our young people are having access to guns. This reinforces why we are continuing to look at the over‑proliferation of guns in our city and remove them off our streets, because things like this should not happen on our public transportation system.

Chan: All right, Mayor Eric Adams, we know you have your hands full tonight. We certainly thank you for taking the time to speak with us and informing our viewers about this serious situation up in the Bronx and also this impending snowstorm. You and your team stay safe tomorrow as well.

Mayor Adams: Thank you very much. Take care.

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